Tinnitus is the sensation of hearing sounds when there are no external sounds present and can be loud enough to attenuate the perception of outside sounds. Tinnitus may be caused by inner ear cell damage resulting from injury, age-related hearing loss, and exposure to loud noises. The tinnitus sound perceived by the affected patient may be heard in one or both ears and also may include ringing, buzzing, clicking, and/or hissing.
Some methods of tinnitus treatment and/or therapy include producing a sound in order to mask the tinnitus of the patient. One example is shown by U.S. Pat. No. 7,850,596 where the masking treatment involves a pre-determined algorithm that modifies a sound similar to a patient's tinnitus sound.
However, the inventors herein have recognized issues with such approaches. For example, the modified sound used in the treatment is generated using a masking algorithm that only partially modifies the spectral qualities of the tinnitus sound. As such, the modified tinnitus sound includes the tinnitus sound of broad band noise only. Thus, an individual patient's tinnitus sound may not be completely masked by the modified tinnitus sound.
In one example approach, some of the above issues may be addressed by a method for generating a tinnitus adjusted sound, comprising presenting a plurality of different sound templates to a user from a series of tinnitus therapy sound templates, receiving a selection by the user of one or more of the templates, receiving an adjustment to one or more of the selected templates, and generating a therapy sound based on the adjusted selections.
In another example, a method for creating a tinnitus therapy may comprise presenting each of a pure tone, a white noise, and a combined tone tinnitus therapy sound template to a user, thereby generating a tinnitus therapy sound based on the tinnitus therapy sound template selected by the user. Further, the method may include adjusting the tinnitus therapy sound based on at least one of a frequency parameter and an intensity parameter selected by the user.
It should be understood that the brief description above is provided to introduce in simplified form a selection of concepts that are further described in the detailed description. It is not meant to identify key or essential features of the claimed subject matter, the scope of which is defined uniquely by the claims that follow the detailed description. Furthermore, the claimed subject matter is not limited to implementations that solve any disadvantages noted above or in any part of this disclosure.